Half-real

Half-real was published by The MIT Press in 2005 as a foundational text in the emerging field of ludology, or game studies. Written by Danish video game researcher Jesper Juul, the book emerged from a period of intense academic inquiry into the nature of video games, specifically addressing the tension between the formal rules of games and the fictional worlds they construct. It serves as a scholarly attempt to reconcile the structuralist view of games as systems with the representational elements that allow players to suspend their disbelief.

Juul designed the book to move beyond the then-prevalent debates that insisted games were either purely narrative or purely mechanical experiences. By arguing that games function as 'half-real' entities—existing simultaneously as rigid rule-sets and imaginative spaces—he provided a framework for analyzing how players navigate game fiction. Upon its release, the work was well-received within academic circles for its clarity and rigor, becoming a core text for students and theorists attempting to categorize the dual identity of digital play.